Answers

1) As a boy Bach was

• B) An orphan
  Bach's mother died when he was 9 years old.  One year later his father died.  At the age of ten he went to live with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph, who was 23 years old.  Bach's brother was an organist and gave him music lessons.  At age 15, Bach needed to move out of his brother's house because the family had become too large.  He managed to get a scholarship to a school in northern Germany, where he sang in the choir and continued to study music.

2) As a musician, Bach is most famous for playing

• C) Organ
  Bach was a famous organist.  He took his first job as an organist when he was only 18.  Actually, he won a competition for an organist position when he was 17, but was disqualified at the last minute because they thought he was too young.

3) Bach was famous for being able to improvise, which meant

• B) He could make the music up as he played
  Bach loved to have improvisation duels on the organ.  Other musicians would take turns with him to see who could play the best and improvise the best.  After a while, no one wanted to play with Bach because he was just too good.

4) Bach was married

• B) Two times
  Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach in 1707.  He was 22 years old.  They had 7 children.  Four of those lived to be adults.
  Catherina Dorothea
  Wilhelm Friede Mann
  Carl Philipp Emanuel
  Johann Gottfried Bernhard
  Maria died in 1720 and Bach married Anna Magdelena Wilcke in 1721.  They had 13 more kids, six of whom lived to be adults.
  Gottfried Heinrich
  Elisabeth Juliana Friedrich
  Johann Christian
  Johanna Carolina
  Regina Susanna